It is understood that a commonly encountered problem in the use of the conventional toilet or water closet is that the user must touch the seat in order to raise and lower it onto the toilet bowl. Toilet seats, and particularly the undersides thereof, due to their proximity to the bowl, tend to be unsanitary, and few people, if any, disinfect them after use. This concern is particularly acute as regards public toilets.
A number of structures have been devised to assist in the raising and the lowering of a conventional toilet seat. However, most of these prior structures cannot be readily affixed to the toilet seat without tools, making them generally unmanageable or difficult for those not adept with tools. The positions of these handles also cannot be readily changed after they are installed.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,999,555 describes a sanitary seat lift with a drip ridge, adapted to be screwed to the underside of a conventional water closet bowl seat. A toilet seat attachment held in place by a biasing spring web is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,191,193. While the springs certainly would hold the attachment in place for a time, it is anticipated that the spring wires would eventually fatigue and fail.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,717,884 mentions a lifting handle for a toilet seat, consisting of a plate-like flange which can be fastened to the underside of a toilet seat by screws, with a laterally projecting hand grip having top and bottom ribs in the form of closed loops. The bottom rib depends adjacent the toilet seat so as to act as a splash deflector. It is noted, however, that the lifter must be permanently affixed by means of screws.
A toilet operating assembly for protecting the hands of the use of a toilet against germs is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,783,455. The device involves an operating assembly being adapted to attach to a toilet seat permanently by means of screws or the like, and includes a partially housed, vapor emitting wick, separating an operating handle and the toilet seat. U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,907 details a toilet seat operating assembly for protecting the hands of a user of the toilet seat against bacteria. The operating assembly is adapted to be permanently attached to a toilet seat, by means of screws, and includes a spherical hand-engaging portion which can be readily removed for cleaning and sanitizing.
A handle attachable to the underside of a toilet seat is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,246 for the purpose of manually lifting or lowering the seat in a sanitary manner. The handle includes an elongated member having an attachment portion securable to the edge marginal region of the seat and a handle portion cantilevered outwardly in position for grasping by the fingers of the user. A deodorant cake is mountable from the attachment portion and the handle portion, including a display area for carrying alpha/numeric or graphic representations in either flat, relief or raised orientation. A cover or sleeve may be inserted over the handle portion which is of sanitary composition or a band of sanitary material may be wrapped around the handle portion. Attachment is taught by means of adhesive tape. Even so, the attachment is considered permanent.
Also of interest is a toilet seat handle device for attachment to a toilet seat as an aid to raising and lowering the toilet seat without having to touch the seat, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,875,251. The handle is attached at one of its ends to the toilet seat and projects outwardly beyond the periphery thereof. Attachment may be made permanently by means of adhesive or screws.
By way of further, though less important information, U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,656 teaches a one-piece toilet seat comprising a rim having a central opening. The toilet seat rim has a front and back section. There is an imaginary axis passing through the front and back sections of the toilet seat rim. This axis lies generally perpendicular to the plane of the person using the toilet seat. The toilet seat rim possesses a lifting tab which extends from the rim outwardly of the rim, preferably at an acute angle to the axis. In this way, the toilet seat rim may be raised and lowered by grasping the tab.
It should be noted that all of the previous devices discussed above are permanently affixed and cannot be moved after attachment. Many of the handles require tools or special expertise for installation. Customers not handy with a screwdriver and/or a drill may have difficulty with these sorts of handles. Even those which do not require screws, such as those of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,805,246 and 4,875,251, but which use adhesive for fastening cannot readily be removed after initial placement. Position adjustment is important for the installation of a toilet seat handle, since it is quite likely that after placement it is discovered that the position is inconvenient, for example, if the handle interferes with the natural position of the user's leg while the user is seated. Since during placement the installer is in a very different position than when using the toilet, he or she may very likely misjudge the proper position. Thus, a mechanism for quickly and easily adjusting the position of the handle would be greatly desired.
Only U.S. Pat. No. 3,191,193 seems to teach a toilet seat handle which can be quickly and easily placed. However, it is to be noted that device therein cannot be adapted to a wide variety of toilet seat widths, but is limited to a fairly narrow range of widths. While many commercially available toilet seats may come in a standard dimension, there is an increasing variety available on the market. Thus, it would be a useful advance in the art to provide a quickly repositionable toilet seat handle that would accommodate a large range of widths.